Breast cancer screening--the European experience.

Europe, despite its division into multiple nations even with a European Union, now enjoys a uniformly high level of cancer detection by virtue of the Europe Against Cancer Program, begun in 1986. The program's aim was reducing cancer mortality by 15% by the year 2000. Its operating arm, the European Breast Cancer Network, compared and reported on the pilot projects in the member states. Some early results were poor, with high recall rates (up to 28%); the main cause was poor image quality. By 1992, the Network had published the first European Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Mammography Screening. Since then, oversight provided by the Network has produced not only excellence in results across the continent but also data on the interpretation of mammograms that could be of value to mammography programs everywhere.